Jehangir Asgar Jani was born in Mumbai in 1955 He didn’t have formal training in painting, throughout his childhood, he would create art as a hobby At the age of 33, he took art as a full-time profession, earlier he was an accountant He has created paintings, sculptures, installations, and films 

 

He has not restricted himself to following any one particular school of thought As a self-taught artist, he was inspired by his own experiences For his sculptures, he uses ceramics, fiberglass, and metal sheets, and his paintings are created with the help of oils, conte and watercolors He perceived that he can express himself in the best possible way through sculpting He is galvanized mostly by Greco-Roman architecture and Islamic and Christian myths to contemporary issues His art greatly talks about culture and the socio-political consequences and its propagation 

 

Jani’s life-size sculptures are implanted in various places These gigantic sculptures are counted as one of the important collections His works are exhibited at several solo and group exhibitions globally 

 

Jehangir was known for short films such as Make-ups [2006], Gun to Goat [2011], Urmi [2012], and Roopantar [2015] The ‘Make Ups’ short film was screened at the Lille Film Festival, Belgium, and Uppsala Film-fest, Sweden in 2005 Another short film called ‘Urmi’ was awarded ‘Best Indian Narrative Short’ at the Kashish MIQ Film Festival in Mumbai, in 2013 Under the banner of ‘Urban Aspiration in Global Cities’, he received the prestigious Max Planck- Tiss fellowship for his film in 2012  

 

He was a resident at Fine Art Resource, Berlin, Germany, and Visiting Lecturer at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France in 2003 and he was honored by the International Sculptor’s Residency, JACIC, Mumbai in 2001 

 

He had more than 17 solo shows till date Some of the noteworthy are ‘Different One’, Arressa Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1990; ‘Bhakti’, Bajaj Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1991; ‘Recent Works’, Fine Art Resource, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1992; ‘A Point of View’, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1994; ‘Fairie Tales…A Relook’, Fine Art Resource, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1998; ‘Stories’, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai in 2000; ‘Lazarus and Anarkali’ at Jehangir Art Gallery, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, Bangalore, Gallery 88, Kolkata in 2002-03; ‘Portraits’, Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai in 2004; ‘Peers’, Gallery Espace, New Delhi; Kalakriti, Hyderabad in 2006; ‘Peers’, Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda; L&P Visual Art Centre, Ahmedabad and ‘Great Expectations’, organized by The Guild Art Gallery at The Museum Gallery, Mumbai in 2007 

 

Jani Jehangir is Mumbai based artist